


Magic and Empires

by HardlyHuman404



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018), Stellaris (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, I dont know how to tag, Main focus on Politics, OC's - Freeform, will probably add more tags later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-09-29 11:01:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17202272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HardlyHuman404/pseuds/HardlyHuman404
Summary: Professor Ibrahim al-Arash is a man that seemed to have aged seeing the good and the bad life has thrown into him and stood back up again.But the death of his granddaughter and her entire family change that. 10 years later, at the age of 95, he stands in front of the wormhole as a final mission he took for himself before retiring.But, along the transition, something goes wrong and he finds himself and the crew of the science ship CNS Nomad, in a place with no stars. A place that defies all their scientific knowledge. A place of magic.But this place has secrets. Dark secrets that connect a girl that looks almost identical to his dead granddaughter and another that looks like the Lady of the Fleet.Will a bitter old man find forgiveness before his life ends? Can he save this magical place before others find it and take advantage of it? Or will he finally succumb to life?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like this. I was playing Stellaris 2 months ago and I had just finished binge-watching She-Ra and the princesses of power (2018) again and this idea just came to my head. Like a silent 18 wheeler truck coming out of nowhere. It hit me and ran me over, then it backed up just in case it missed me.

****

“Professor, may I ask you something?”

Spoke the ensign as he stood behind the professor. The professor didn’t look up from his computer as he continued to type away.

“Yes, you may” He spoke with a flat tone.

“Why would you take this dangerous mission?” The ensign tilting his head as he asked the older man in front of him.

The professor for his part simply looked at the ensign with a bored expression, and replied: "Why shouldn’t I?” Narrowing his grey eyes as he looked at the ensign “Do you think I’m not qualified to lead this survey mission, ensign?”   

At that, the ensign's eyes considerable widen as he stuttered a response “N-no, o-of course, not professor." rubbing the back if his neck "It's just that, you could be retiring at your age. Enjoying the remaining of your life."

The older man simply raised his eyebrow. The ensign took that as a sign to continue "It's just that, to my knowledge, senior scientist like yourself would usually be paid around two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand credits per month. And since you have here for about 50 years now. You should have at least, no less than 5 million credits in your bank." The ensign stated, as he rubbed his semi-hairless chin in thought and momentarily forgetting the professor in front of him as he counted the numbers in his head.

The professor cleared his throat to snap the train of thoughts the young man in front of him was going.

“You’re right.” He agreed with the ensign, as he turned and continued typing on the computer “But, I want to stay. At least see it to the end. Does that answer your question ensign?” He finished.

"U-um, of the course professor. Forgive me for interrupting you" The ensign saluted and went back to his work. 

* * *

“I mean. Have you seen their standard tactics? It’s just rushing the enemy with heavy tanks and light infantry. I can already think of 15 different way for countering that. One of them consists of heavy artillery bombardment.”

“Can you blame them? Those fucking fanatics would throw themselves at our bullets if their so-called ‘Prophet' said so."

"Filthy fucking Xenos. I don't know why we even stopped. We had them by the balls?!"

“Because galactic politics work like that. Besides if we continued to wage war without any casus belli, the rest of the galaxy would call us warmongers and team up to kill us. Better this way. At least until we can make sure that every one of those fuckers will be too afraid to attack us.”

As Capt. Danir Oliv walked to the command centre of the ship, he hears a similar conversation. And he can't really blame his men for it. After all, it had only been 10 years since the end of the war where 2 factions bombarded their outer colonies, simply for having different ideas. A war which left millions of dead, both soldiers and civilians. Billions worth of infrastructure destroyed, multiple spaceports lost.

Even though they had mostly recovered from it, the first few days after the ceasefire had been hectic.

Food riots everywhere, paid-off pirates attacking the still recovering border colonies, taking with them slaves.

It was to the point that the military had to put a martial law on every single inner and outer colony and sort out the food distribution and erects multiple refugee centres, just to prevent open insurrection.

After all of that was done came thousands of ships either needing repair and crew and with most of the mining stations still being repaired and having no credits to pay the soldiers, they were forced to drydocked almost all the fleets except one, tasked to protect the border.

It was only through the rise of High Marshall Heidi Hoffman when she prioritized the fixing if the mining station and forcefully maxing out the power output of energy, that the dry fleet problem was solved.

She focused mostly on the industrial side of the Commonwealth, which was a surprise considering all her predecessors focused on shipbuilding, securing outpost and strengthening the Commonwealth's border.

He could still remember how his ship almost buckled as it was constantly being peppered by [Huvidu-Zaan Cooperative] Corvettes. He would have found it funny on how 3, 1.5 km long, corvettes hope to bring down his 7.5 km long Cruiser and would have immediately had them destroyed by his ripper auto-cannon alone and move-on, except for the fact that he couldn’t as they were down from the hyper core backlash, causing his weapons and shields to shut down.

It would have been fine if not for the fact that he just jumped in the middle of a [Huvidu-Zaan Cooperative] patrol.

He remembered pushing his ship to the limit thinking he would be able to kill the patrol before succumbing to the backlash. He was close, he took down 7 corvettes and a destroyer before his weapons and shield were forcefully shut down as to prevent them from blowing his ship apart.

He almost died, if it wasn’t for the fleet of Strike Force Kraken that was near enough to respond to his distress beacon, he would have certainly died that day.

And now, here he was 10 years into the future, guarding the construction vessels as they build the stabilizers for the wormhole in the system.

His mission could be summarized as protecting the construction vessel and making sure that nothing goes wrong.

As he watched the construction ship put the final piece and checking the system on board to make sure that every equipment is working the way they should, and not blow up and flatten everything in the system.

Shivering slightly at that thought he ordered the construction vessel to quintuple-check the equipment

"CNS Diligent. This is Capt. Oliv, commanding officer of the Oberon-class Cruiser, CNS Faithful."

"Yes, Capt.? What can I do for you?" asked the operator of the construction vessel, confusion in his voice, as if he was wondering what he has done wrong.

“I’m going to need you to quintuple-check the entire system as to prevent any sort of collapse of some sort. I still want to continue living after this mission, Diligent.”

“…….Copy that Faithful”

The response took longer than he liked as if they were considering it.

Not taking any risk, he ordered his ship to have the emergency hyperdrive running at 90% and have it ready for immediate evacuation in case something does go wrong.

As the wormhole stabilizer starts to hum as its rings on the edges start to slowly move in a clockwise manner.

Capt. Oliv held his breath as the stabilizer hummed, after 2 minutes of a heart-pounding moment, he let go of the breath he was holding.

Seeing his job done, he started to order his ship to move back to the fleet Strike Force Wyvern.

The last thing he saw before jumping into the hyperdrive lane was a science vessel that had a somehow a familiar name.

* * *

“Alright professor.” The Captain called out “Here we go.” He said as the command crew started watching the system vitals, as they moved to the wormhole. “Moving to the Wormhole.”

“Everything looks green professor” Noted the helmsman.

“Very well. Drive us in.”

* * *

Commonwealth of Man Ethics and value:

Military Dictatorship. Xenophobe and Fanatic Militarist.

Traditions: Expansion, Supremacy and Prosperity.

Wide Empire (Large amount of territory, but a somewhat tedious working in handling minerals. Conquering and settling everywhere)

Traits:

  * Wasteful – Consumer Goods Cost +15% on consumer goods
  * Very Strong – (Mysterious coffin Event -Red Serum:) Army Damage +40% and Minerals +10%
  * Adaptive – Habitability +10%
  * Nomadic – Migration Speed +50% and Resettlement Cost -25%




	2. Wake up MR Snowman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew of the science vessel CNS Nomad wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello to those reading this. This is the second chapter. I hope you like it.

_The Commonwealth of Man is a government born in the womb of desperation. In the year 2100, Earth's resources have reached into a critical stage that the planet cannot sustain any more humans in it. Multiple nations worked together and built 3 arks. Each ark containing 100 million humans in cryogenics. They were sent to the void, in hopes that, if in the future they meet again, it will be with open arms. Thus, they began their 100-year journey to space._

_But of those 3 arks, only 1 reached their destination. The rest was lost to the void. Either they died in starvation or in crew mutiny or in a cosmic Incident._

_The beginning years of the Commonwealth saw a rampant rise in crime and ideological clashes that left hundreds of civilians’ dead. Forced into a corner, the military crew of the ARK has taken absolute command and saw order with the people._

_The first 90 years were peaceful for the Commonwealth as they try to carve a place for themselves in space._

_That changed in 2295 when the science vessel CNS Wanderer encountered a [United Caloctora Nation] ship on the western side of the Commonwealth. This was followed after the encounter of another ship, the CNS Absolute on the eastern side of the Commonwealth._

_Taking the initiative, the Commonwealth opened communications with them, thinking that they finally found life besides theirs._

_The first few months after the communication of the two other alien empires were hesitant, as both sides were wary of one another._

_Slowly but surely, communications form each empire slowly stopped. Until 2310, when they suddenly declared war on the Commonwealth._

_Caught unguarded, the Commonwealth's border colonies were bombarded, and the mining stations were destroyed. This resulted in a massive loss in minerals and energy._

**_-Script took from chapter 7, page 57 in the book “Beginning of an Empire”._ **

The professor woke up with a throbbing headache, it felt as if the behemoth creatures of Okul just trampled all over him.

As he tried to open his eyes, only to close them again due to the bright light in front of him.

*Moan*

A groan came out of him as he tried to sit up when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Relax Professor Ibrahim. You hit your head pretty hard back there”

The voice -clearly male- said calmly.

Slowly opening his eyes, as it adjusted to the brightness, he could see the owner of the voice.

It was a dark-skinned man with an amiable face. He smiled when he saw the Professor finally opened his eyes.

Blinking rapidly to get the stars out of his vision and clearing his mind.

After a moment, he finally recognized him as the Chief Medical Officer of the ship.

Looking around, he could see there were quite some people in the infirmary. Most of them either had head wrapping or cast on their arms/legs.

“What happened?” The Professor asked the medical officer as he turned to him.

“What was the last thing you remembered?”

“I remember..” The professor slowly remembered what happened to the ship “…the ship shaking. Lots of shouting and the emergency shutters going down.”

The medical officer simply nodded “Yea. That’s what everyone remembered as well”

“So, what happened?”

“From what I know, something happened to the wormhole stabilizers after we went in. Apparently, Hyperdrive and Warp Drive don't mix well with wormholes. Who knew?" He shrugged at that last part.

“Where are we now?”

“That I do not know. You’re going to have to ask the engineers or the captain for that”

Thanking the medical officer, he went out and walk towards the command bridge.

On his way there, seeing crewmembers that sport a gash on the head or a bandage on the hand wasn't rare, in fact, it seemed as if everyone was sporting a minor wound or bruises of some sort.

It made the professor wonder how strong was the shaking that most of the crew would have wounds on them.

Reaching the command bridge, he noticed a somewhat controlled chaos state it is in, there are some comms officers going under the control system and trying to fix it along with some engineers and ensigns all busily either typing or helping the engineers

The professor noticed all this, but the captain was nowhere to be found.

Catching the nearest ensign that almost ran past him, he asked where the captain is.

 “Ensign. Where is the captain?”

The ensign almost stumbled as he was grabbed by the professor, looking into who grabbed him and seeing it was a senior professor, he saluted before answering him.

“We haven’t seen the captain since he dragged professor Dema and your protégé with him, sir”

“Do you at least know where they went?”

“Last I saw them, they were going to the captain’s room. I’m sorry, sir. But I need to go and see if there are any other damage on the ship” With that, the ensign excused himself and walked towards one of the computer terminals and started checking on the system.

Walking out of the command bridge and to the captain room, he knocked three-time and waited for a moment, before it was opened by one of his colleague, Professor Dema.

Entering the room, he could see his protégé tinkering with her android using her synthetic tentacles. Speaking of his protégé, he could see that even she didn’t escape the shaking unscathed. She had a wound on her cheeks-that is bound to disappear in a few hours- and both her synthetic arms were missing, well more of missing it seemed as if someone melted it away, which internally surprised the professor as he knew that those arms were custom made of crystal-infused durasteel, and were-with enough strength- were capable of punching straight through corvette-class, ship-grade armour. He should know, he was the one who had it made. 

Though aside from that, she still had that tangled, unkempt red curls of a hair that had a noticeable burn and oil stains on her hairs edge-similar to a fiery red crow’s nest- and a notable bag beneath her eyes and a missing left eyebrow that seemed to have been burned of recently.

But even that didn’t seem to diminish excited she state she was in, in such that the professor could swear he could see her jade green eyes physically sparkle. Hearing the door opened, she turned her personal spinning chair and saw the professor come in.

“Professor! Am I glad that you’re awake! You wouldn’t believe what just happened! Take a guess! C’mon, take a guess!”

She jumped close to the professor- which considering her height of 1.52 meters (5’5) was quite a feat to the professor who was 1.90 meters (6’0) and entered his personal space- she looked at him with her green eyes intensely in the hope that he would try and guess, but the professor wasn’t bothered by it as he was used to her acting like this.

Pushing her lightly and putting a hand on her shoulder, he asked her to calm down.

“Calm down Clara”

“OH, right” she spoke as if she was just recently told of that, even though the professor had repeatedly told her the same thing for over 8 years now. With that, the glow of excitement on her green eyes diminish but never disappeared. 

"Now, tell me what happened," He asked, "Also, what happened to your arms?"

“Well to your first question, we don’t know” It wasn’t Clara that answered the question but Dema “And to your second question. Well, it would be best if she explained it herself.”

Looking at his protégé, as she didn’t seem to notice they were talking about her as she went back to tinkering with her android.

“Clara, what happened to your arms?”

“Hmm?” She looked back, tilting her head as if confused by the question “Well, as you can see. They were melted off. I thought that was obvious?” she accented this by waving both her stump artificial arms.

Closing his eyes and breathing deeply, the professor know that Clara is a bit ‘special’ in the head- not the bad kind, but the excellent kind of ‘special’ at least to him- and he doesn’t blame her for it. Exhaling the breath he held in him, he opened his eyes and asked the question again, this time with more detail.

“I meant, what happened to your arm that resulted in it melting. I want the details Clara”

“Well, me and Clarkson here were in the engineering room when we entered the wormhole...”

“Wait, why were you in the engineering room? I thought you would be in your lab or in the robotics room” Professor Dema interrupted. Ibrahim, simply glared at him as he knows easily Clara can get distracted if interrupted.

“I wanted to observe how our own hyperdrive and the prototype warp drive would act to a different way of travelling in the speed of light." She replied "Speaking of that, I need a data pad to write what I saw and a recorder. Does anyone have any?" With that, Clara stood up and started walking around the room looking for a data pad, flipping books and drawers.

Ibrahim glared at Dema as if saying ‘this is your fault’ who at least the decency to look a bit ashamed. Getting Clara back to talk on what she was doing on the engineering room would be hard, but he practically raised the girl, so he knows what he needs to do.

Taking a deep breath, Ibrahim mustered as much patience as he could, he gently grabbed Clara’s shoulder, leading her to her special spinning chair and forcefully plopping her down her seat, and calmly asked her again “What happened to the engineering room, Clara?”

Clara looks unperturbed by the look of the professor, tilting her head and tapping her synthetic tentacle in her chin in a show of thoughtfulness, she replied “Well, I saw something was happening to both drives as they were emitting far more radiation than what is thought to be safe or normal. It was there that I noticed that the prototype warp drive was overheating and going bonkers. So, I asked Clarkson to guard my stuff as I try to fix the overheating warp drive.”

“That doesn’t answer why you lost both of your arms though.” Dema inquired.

"I was getting to that," She says as she spun her chair. Stopping the spinning, Ibrahim told her she can continue spinning later after she finished her story.

“Anyway” she continued “I didn’t have time to find a toolbox, so I used my arms in, adjusted the modulator and manually turned off the capacitor from the inside. Fin of the story" and with that, she continued spinning while having her android-Clarkson, he corrected himself- spin her.

Rubbing his eyes, he looked at Dema who was looking at Clara, as if she was some sort of void beast. He can understand his disbelief, because he too knew how dangerous the prototype is, in fact just 8 months ago he heard news of another science vessel using the prototype warp drive, only to have it malfunction in the middle of the jump and having them vanish.

They were only discovered 2 months later, with the crew all dead and the vessel almost an unrecognizable floating hunk of metal. If it didn’t have the black box, he was sure no one would know what that ship was or if it was even a ship.

Shaking his head, he looked at his protégé, who was now waving her tentacles in the air as her android rapidly spin her in her special chair.

He knows that she knows just how much power that thing requires to power itself up and how much more it takes to make it jump, with it always being pooled up for an emergency at 50%. The heat of it, without protection, would reach up 20 million degrees alone, enough to melt the hulls of all known ship.

_‘Yet despite all that, she still struck her arms in it when she could have just easily used her synthetic tentacles.’_  Ibrahim knew that the girl can sometimes show her caring side in a somewhat weird way that would sometimes cause a misunderstanding, but he knows she cares, in her own weird and peculiar way.

Hearing the door open, he turned and saw the Captain enter the room, he was holding a datapad with him and was looking at it with scrunch eyebrows, as if said data pad had just offended him. So engrossed was he with the data pad that he didn’t notice the Ibrahim and bumped into him, looking up from the datapad.

It was here where Ibrahim saw a glimpse of worry, then acknowledgement. All of it passed in such a quick succession before walls of iron and steel came slamming down his face and he became Captain Antonie Bouchard, ‘disgraced’ captain of fleet Strike force Charybdis.

He looked as if the years had seemingly forgotten about him, and if it wasn't for the greying hairline on his rich brown hair and increase lines on his forehead, no one would have thought that he was already on his 50's

Always stoic, the man is rather plain looking, not too handsome nor too ugly. But he always stuck with the same expression on his face. A face that seemed to be made from marble and with the running rumour of him being an android, it was easy to believe why and not hard to believe otherwise. In fact, if he didn’t breathe, he was pretty sure even he would doubt if the man was alive at all.

 "Professors" He greeted both of them with a small nod of his head and looked at Clara still spinning on her chair " Ms Ashton" with that Clara stopped her spinning and smiled at the captain.

“Hello Captain”

Antonie looked to his desk and saw the papers on the floor and the drawers removed, he already has a plain idea on who did that.

Closing his eyes and with a single breath, he opened them again.

“I am calling everyone to the briefing area on deck 6” He simply said as he picks up the fallen papers "You might want to be there for this, Professors."

With that he left, after a few moments, Dema said his goodbyes and left for the briefing. That left Ibrahim and Clara in the room.

Sighing deeply, he looked at Clara who looked at him.

“I never got to thank you for what you did Clara.”

“What for?”

“For saving everyone on this ship.”

"I only did what I could professor." She smiled at that started to the doors for the briefing, behind her was her personal android, Clarkson carrying her personal spinning chair.

Sighing, the professor stood up and walked to the doors, already he can feel his age catching up to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still going strong with this one.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm experimenting with massive world building here. This fic will deal after the bright moon attack and the political intricacy. It will NOT have super OP protagonist. OC or not. There will be no superior or inferior faction. All of them have their good and bad.  
> Please read and Review. Bad or Good, I'll still read it. Plus it helps improve future work and chapters.


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